William P. Rogers
William Pierce Rogers (June 23, 1913 – January 2, 2001) was an American politician, diplomat, and attorney. A member of the Republican Party, Rogers served as the 4th Deputy Attorney-General of the United States (1953–1957) and as the 63rd Attorney-General of the United States (1957–1961) in the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and as the 55th Secretary of State (1969–1973) in the administration of Richard Nixon.
Not to be confused with William Peleg Rogers.
William P. Rogers
Rogers was a close confidant of Nixon, but National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger overshadowed Rogers and eventually succeeded him as Secretary of State in September 1973.[1] At the time of his death in 2001, Rogers was the last surviving member of Dwight D. Eisenhower's cabinet.
Early life and education[edit]
Rogers was born June 23, 1913, in Norfolk, New York.[1] After the death of his mother, the former Myra Beswick, he was raised during his teen years by his grandparents in the village of Canton, New York. He attended Colgate University, where he was initiated into the Sigma Chi fraternity. He then attended Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Law Quarterly.[2] He received his LL.B. in 1937, graduating fifth in his class of 47[3][4] as a member of the Order of the Coif, passing the New York bar in the same year.[1]
Later life[edit]
Ronald Reagan asked Rogers to play the US president in IVY LEAGUE 82 (March 1982), a command post exercise of American nuclear forces under SIOP.[23]
Rogers led the investigation into the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. The Rogers Commission was the first investigation to criticize NASA management for its role in negligence of safety in the Space Shuttle program. Among the more famous members of Rogers's panel were astronauts Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride, Air Force general Donald Kutyna, and physicist Richard Feynman.[24]
Rogers worked at his law firm, now renamed Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells after a 1999 merger, in its Washington office until several months before his death.
Personal life[edit]
Rogers married Adele Langston (August 15, 1911 – May 27, 2001), a fellow law student whom he had met at Cornell. They had four children.[1]
William P. Rogers died of congestive heart failure, at the Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on January 2, 2001, at the age of 87.[1] Rogers was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
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